Just a bit

 I'm trying to get over a little nose congestion and have it not go to my chest.  I've had that problem all my life - Fargo was the worst with the wind and cold - but I still get it here in Tennessee once in a while, too.  Basically, I've been told, my sinuses aren't quite right but it would take a lot to make them 'right' and they probably wouldn't stay that way, so learn how to deal with it.  I eat a lot of soup and drink a lot of tea.

I made pea soup this morning with garlic and onions and clove spice, and drank it all straight down.

I've been studying Greek, trying to increase that score from 15 to 16 - and also doing Spanish-->French and French-->Spanish on my phone, and caught up on a few lessons of Russian today after watching a big cat handler's Youtube again with Esme and pointing out that I could understand some of what she was saying.  My Duolingo scores on the French-->Spanish and Spanish-->French are both sitting at 10 and 11, respectively.  My English-->French score is just hovering under 70, and I know that could be improved but the grammar is getting into 'you have to study now' territory.  I'm still using the free version, as well.  And I was surprised to see my Russian score materialize today also at 11.  They didn't have those scores back when I did the free A-level Busuu course and then caught up some practice on Duolingo. 

Found a little red photo album from my early childhood and posted a few pictures for my sister to see, and to try to figure out who the people were in them.  I was really originally looking for what the linoleum looked like in our house when I was a child - because I could remember it almost exactly.  I picked out an image on Google that I was sure was it - and when I found the picture in the album, yes, *pat on back* it was exactly the same pattern.  Those sort of things stick with you when you have a photographic memory.  I remember my mother being upset that I would trace such patterns with my fingers, and especially the mirroring in it was something I was fascinated with.  Come to discover later that patterns and dyslexia mirroring things were a big part of how my brain works - little surprise!

 

 

I was also doing my Lithuanian / Latvian vocabulary - on baba dum only Lithuanian is available and on Baltoslav both are.  I was finding it useful to look away from the screen on ba ba dum and hear the word, 'spell' it in my vision, and then look and see if the word was what I thought it was before trying to match it to the picture I also thought it should be.  BaltoSlav doesn't have pronunciation, but Google translate has gotten much better at pronouncing Latvian, and I've been watching some more Tuta's Lietas as well for that.

 Still no actual USE for these languages other than my brain works much better and less stress fully with this 'in all the boxes' than with remembering 50,000+ items in inventory per department in the hardware store I worked at.   

The New Year's Cake and Parsnip Soup

 Esme and I made the butter almond cake together today.  

 

My haul from the grocery store.  I didn't take any pictures of the cake itself.  We made hopping john of a sort, and I served carrots and the almond cake for Esme, and carrots, the almond cake, greens and some of the acorn squash for grandma and myself.

 I had looked through all of my recipes and found the recipe for galette des rois (king's cake) and decided it was too complicated.  But yesterday, I had decided that I needed to make the cake again, maybe something that I can still eat after this dental work.

 

This is what we made - it was good, a bit like sweetened cornbread.  I can't have corn products, have been avoiding them for years now on my cousin's recommendation with my other connective tissue disorder.   

 

Butter Almond Cake :

 

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter softened

1 cup white granulated sugar

2 large eggs (at room temperature)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

little less than 3 tsp. baking powder

1.5 cups of general purpose flour

1/2 cup of ground almonds

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until fork comes out clean

cream softened butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla, beat until smooth, mix dry ingredients in another bowl and add half and half with the milk beating until all combined, pour into ceramic dish, bake

 

Hopping John  

 

fry chopped bacon on low until the edges begin to crisp, keep the oil in the pan

pour drained can of black eyed peas into the grease and mix thoroughly while still heating

stir often until it begins to bubble again

put frozen chopped green onions into mixture, heat again until it sizzles and stir until the gravy thickens

 

Parsnip Soup  (a variation on the turnip soup from a while back)

 

peel and chop up into small slivers one large parsnip

put in pot with at least 2 cups (I think it was closer to 4) of water

pour in a bit of olive oil 

add frozen zucchini and onions

garlic parmesan grilling seasoning

black pepper 

 

boil until everything is soft, use a stick blender to make smooth 

add a good pat of good butter on top of each bowl

 

 

 

Le Vide?

 Saw that the French nickname for this part of the year is the void (le vide) and yes, I've experienced the 'what day is this anyway' already.  Because, two days off is something I just don't get anymore, much less two days off, two days on, and another day off!  So I woke Friday night and had no idea what was going on or what I should be doing Saturday morning.  Even though I do the postal route every Saturday.  What is this.. Saturday?  What is time?  Where am I, even?

Enough of that.  Studying a lot more Latvian, using bern istaba and tuta lietas, ba ba dum and baltoslav.  I often forget the names of those things and can only remember the flavor - so I post here what they are so I can look it up again later.  I love Tuta's style - and my daughter just recently noticed the hats.  Why does she have an airplane in her hair?  So I had to explain it to her.  

One of the most useful things towards learning is to have the subtitles on in Latvian, stop it, open up a second window, try to type the word I saw (without peeking) and then find out the translation of it.  I have to remember the word and remember what was said about the word, find out the translation, then try to relate it back to what I heard - quickly, and then maybe replay the sentence or wait until the next time they say the word again with better knowledge of it.  It is very real learning.  When I am playing baltoslav in Latvian, after studying a lot on ba ba dum in Lithuanian, I stop and three-point-translate the words that are different, like 'pillow' is different in Latvian and Lithuanian (a lot of words are almost the same, too) and recognize what the word is in English, Latvian and Lithuanian all at once to make contact points between the languages.  I can feel 'brain burn' during this, like when I started learning Catalan (in Spanish).  It actually feels great :)

I studied Greek on the other platform, and have been improving my Spanish to French score on the third platform.  That contributes perhaps, to 'le vide'.

Other than that we are eating leftovers, and I am trying to clean a thing here or there.  There is always laundry.  I say I won't take down the Christmas tree until after January 5th, but most years I am still forgetting to take it down come April.  

I've planned to go out and spend a gift certificate that was gotten on the postal route from one of my residents.  We don't often go out to restaurants at all, and there is some social anxiety about it.  I talked to E about the social anxiety (and I had a lot of it yesterday morning after giving a gift back to that resident in return, and all the social 'did I do that right' etc. insecurities about that kept me beating myself up for two hours or more) and told her it really helped when my dad finally told me that he did that too.  

The biggest thing is you always feel it was silly and didn't matter that much after it - but when you're inside it, and you can't break out from it, it feels even worse to tell yourself it is silly, it doesn't feel silly.  The only thing that helps, as my dad also said, was to 'plow through' it - do other things that need to be done, find something like a book or music to distract you for a moment - and eventually the 'reverberation' of the anxiety will die down some.  THEN, after it did ease up a little, THEN remind yourself that you made it through to this point, that it feels silly but only after the fact, and that life goes on and things need to be done.  You're the person that is there to do them, and then go do them.

As I said on another site : Some days I have to remind myself that it is okay to have difficulty with being a singular entity inexplicably residing in a corporeal form that is adherent to the laws of space and time.  Other days, I have to just admit that I am (anxious / impatient / annoyed / frustrated) and get myself up and do some chores.

 

Christmas Day

 We put together some 3D printed toys Mark had downloaded and printed.

 

Mark made a roast beef cut and potatoes, and we had the pears that I had made yesterday with pudding.  It was a good dinner, and over by 3:30 pm, and everyone opened their gifts.  Esme and Mark got clothing they needed and snacks and Grandma got some snacks and a blanket and socks.  Esme bought Mark a blanket, as well.  I gave Esme a talking penguin toy, a star projector and we all played a card game that I had bought.  I got coffee and spices and socks.  Mark had found more guajilio chiles for me at the store, which I knew they had according to the website but couldn't find them IN the store.  I also considered buying three plus pounds of pears and the gouda cheese as part of my Christmas gift 'splurging' on food that I wanted. 

 Grandma watched a few shows with us, and then I brought her back home. 

 I have work tomorrow and Saturday.  Studying Greek mostly today, and some Catalan.

 

another of the spice mixes I had in my Christmas presents, with pumpkin seeds, a bag of caramel coffee, seaweed snacks and pistachio pudding :)

 

 

Christmas Eve, 9 years with the green owl

 

Oh, I've still studied twenty plus languages, but these are the top tier and I keep at them on Duolingo... not including Latvian and Lithuanian, which are not on 'the green owl'.. but I'd love it if they were added.  I had made a phone profile to force myself to do more Spanish learning (and Catalan, in Spanish) when I was not at home, so I haven't had that for the full 9 years, more like 3?  I often play the 'all languages' version on Ba Ba Dum.  It throws curveballs at me in Albanian and Greek and Turkish and Chinese etc- which I don't have as much practice in beyond basics, as well as the languages I am studying more - and it shows that my Romanian and Spanish vocabularies are very lacking, my Japanese needs work, my Czech is better than expected, and my Lithuanian and French are the best there. It is one of the two places I can practice the Lithuanian, and the other place is BaltoSlav, which has the Latvian to practice.

 It's Christmas Eve, it is 70 degrees out nearly (I am happy about that) and I'm cooking pears in butter and ginger vanilla sauce.  I'll make a cake tomorrow for it maybe.  Mark has another roast to put in the oven with beef broth and rice for tomorrow.  We will bring Grandma down for an early dinner, as she likes to eat early.

1 qt jar of water, mixed with white sugar, vanilla, a few tablespoons of butter and good powdered ginger.  Brown sugar put over the peeled and halved pears with seeds scooped out.  Heat up the quart jar mixture in microwave, pour over the pan of brown sugared pears, then put in oven at 275 (because Mark had a roast in there already) for a few hours, turning every ten to fifteen minutes.  Save all the liquid - it is excellent syrup!

 I even had to go get some more pears - because they are good.  The greenish ones I've put in the freezer for making something else, after washing and cutting them up into chunks.  I bought some gouda cheese to go with it, and more mozzarella which we usually have.

 

The Christmas Tree is ready, with a few things for everyone under it.

I caught up on the Greek and Japanese today, after doing Catalan and Romanian for much of the week.  Now to do some laundry and cleaning.  Mark said the chickens were checking their wristwatches this morning as I had slept in, but I said no they were checking their 'roost watches'.  
 

 I had asked for some spices this year - and this one was one I didn't put under the tree.  Someone had brought it to work for a cookout months ago and I've been looking to see what store around here carried it ever since.  It is excellent with avocado, just as a topping!

a few photos

 

goat out in the fenced in yard on a very cold morning

she is peeking out from behind the tree 

two dogs out there, too - but you can't see them laying down in the sun in the leaves

an elephant flower pot Mark made on his 3D printer, but he wasn't sure it would hold up to soil and water.  I'm not sure what else to use it for, but it is cute.  That is a tote bag I am crocheting in the background in the box

seared pork with lots of spices on it, and some zucchini added at the end, if I use a sharp knife and cut the meat up into shreds, I can eat it.  The zucchini wasn't quite done enough to mash, but I was able to eat some of it.

 

another picture of the same little goat from about a month ago, she is totally blind in one eye and can see some light in the other, she wasn't supposed to live past a few months old - they didn't think she could get past weaning onto solid food etc.. but she is over four years old now
 

Our unconventional Christmas tree, because when we had the hvac installed this summer the stand went missing and we cannot find it.  Didn't let it stop us - Mark and Esme both said 'Australian Christmas' without hearing the other one say it.  This is the same little tree and ornaments we have had forever, and it is on a switch so I can turn it off at night.